More salsa, soul and spirit

Blog friend Hector Saldaña was up and out early this morning and files this report:

Juanas Bordas’ early bird special at Ruta Maya Coffee & Ale House on Wednesday, Aug. 29, came spiked with an eye-opening shot of reality to go along with the java and fruit and pastry breakfast.

The Denver-based leadership trainer and consultant read from her new book, “Salsa, Soul and Spirit: Leadership For a Multicultural Age.”

She’s hawking it here in Texas, targeting Latina leaders in particular (on Monday, she spoke at the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center), because she wanted to come to talk to the “women with the bullets,” figuratively, of course, the movers and shakers of cultural activism on the frontera.

Bordas’ ideas of a multicultural future aren’t necessarily brand new, but they are hammered out in an organized and informed fashion. And they bear repeating, in her words.

She spoke passionately about the “sugar-coating of history” regarding the conquest, colonization and genocide of people of color, specifically African Americans, Latinos and American Indians.

Bordas railed against “cultural amnesia” of the mainstream and warned that when an “I” culture meets a “We” culture, “the ‘I’s will win.”

In other words, the white male model of leadership has got to go for a more generous, less greedy and collective leadership to emerge. And minorities must never forget their pasts.

The Nicaraguan-born speaker, who grew up in Tampa, Fla., in the 1950s, said that her goal is to change mainstream American leadership and that people of color “have the intellectual capacity to lead this nation.”

“It’s almost like (the mainstream) is blind to the fact that we have leaders,” Bordas said.

She was critical of the increasingly frivolous, celebrity-driven news cycle that distracts from serious issues. “It’s totally ridiculous,” she said. “The media has been sold.”

Bordas also challenged Hispanic leaders to be strong, stay on message and not to be easily seduced and nullified by corporate funding. “We came this far without corporate support,” she said.